MICHIGAN CITY– Art is not always made through strict work hours and deadlines. Sometimes, it requires having to go into a headspace that may be intense. And for many, that proves to be cathartic and brings out some of their best work.

Macee Fellers, an artist based in Michigan City, grew up in Northern Indiana on a farm near the border of Bremen and South Bend. She grew up in a religious family and was homeschooled through most of her life. However, her family encouraged her to foster her own individuality by allowing her to explore their property and interact with nature.

“I climbed a lot of trees, played pretend and tried to make baskets out of leaves and grass,” said Fellers.

Her grandparents, predominantly her grandfather, encouraged her to express herself artistically with her grandfather giving her her first easel and enrolled her into different art classes in her childhood. Throughout her schooling years, Fellers said, she painted and experimented with other mediums, but she didn’t take it too seriously. Two years ago, she created a goal to commit herself to painting after realizing she wanted to master her craft.

After a six-month stay in New Orleans, Louisiana, she said her artistic talents and drive to take her career to the next level took off. During her time in New Orleans, she said she took lessons at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts while tending bars in the evenings. While sharpening her painting skills, she also took drawing classes, predominantly working with ink work. She said, during her drawing class, she felt like she was the worst in the class.

“I came home,like, in tears, I was so upset,” Fellers said. “I was like ‘I don’t need to be in this class. I’m so bad’.”

Her boyfriend did his best to cheer her up, saying the was in the class in order to improve and hone her skills. By her own admission, she said she wasn’t sure if she was able to keep going. Eventually, things turned around when the painting class in the abstract style began. During the painting, she said her artistic talents truly shined and she left feeling very good about herself.

“It was a good balance of, like,...I was like ‘Okay, I don’t need to be hard on myself,” Fellers said. “It’s just very obvious of what I’ve been doing and what I haven’t been doing.”

Though she does a multitude of different genres of art which include writing and photography, Fellers said her primary mode of work is painting. She describes her style as abstract-surrealism with some influences from Romanticism. Her primary influence in her work is Francis Bacon, but other influences include Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet.

She said Bacon’s backstory and energy he placed in his pieces really spoke to her, saying there were stories being told through his work.

“He really hid behind his work,” she said. “You can tell he’s trying to say something that he just can’t.”

When it comes to her artistic process, Fellers said she doesn’t have a strict time in the days throughout the week as she said she could get overwhelmed easily. She said in order to get the creative process going, she has to lose herself in feeling an emotion in order for her to get ready to point, such as recalling rough times in her life when her emotions were very strong. The more she feels an emotion, whether it’s sadness, anger or happiness, the more she said she felt she can work on a project.

“I like to turn music on, I’ll light candles,” Fellers said. “I try to be as nonpresent as possible. Because when I’m not feeling present, feeling nonpresent helps me ground myself [to be able to work].”

Her best work, she said, comes from a spontaneous effort, rather than a structured and disciplined one. She said if she pushes herself too hard, then it doesn’t come off as authentic.

“I feel like my best stuff is when I’m not planning anything…,” she said. “The only time I’ve been able to look at anything that I’ve made where I’m, like, I feel like how I felt is coming through with what I did…is when I just let it happen and I lean into wherever it is that I’m at mentally.”

So far, much of her work, she said, has been sold to close friends and family. However, she said, she has made some inroads in getting an artistic career off the ground. Recently, a friend of hers invited her to a Create Change Festival he was holding in Plymouth in order to raise funds for literacy programs. She sold three pieces at La Porte’s Arts in the Park last summer. She also has been invited to place her work in the New Buffalo Art Gallery and she is currently working on building a body of work for display.

One of the many pieces of wisdom she gained starting her career was once a piece of work has been created, it is up to the person viewing the piece to interpret it how they see fit. An artist may have an idea of what their piece means to them, but to the person viewing their work they may interpret it differently.

She learned that when she spoke to the New Buffalo Art Gallery founder, Jake Taylor, who came to visit her and give her feedback on her work. She said he told her she needed to get out of her head and accept that just because she doesn’t like a piece doesn’t mean no one else will.

“You have to look at it like, once it’s done, it’s done,” she said. “If it doesn’t speak to you, just because you made it, that doesn’t mean it’s not going to speak to someone else.”

To see more of her work, visit her Instagram page @MaceeWinduArt.

Macee Fellers May Guest Artist 2024